No. 9. 



Use of Oxen. 



283 



thirty days or six weeks passage. From 

 Buenos Ayres to Mendoza, the distance is 

 nine hundred miles, and the journey is per- 

 formed in about thirty days." 



In some parts of England they formerly 

 had ox races, and it is said that some years 

 ago an ox ran four miles, over the course at 

 Lewis, for one hundred guineas, at the rate 

 of fifteen miles the hour. 



We are told that in India bullocks are 

 used for the saddle and coach, and that there 

 travelling oxen are curried, clothed and at- 

 tended, with as much solicitude, and much 

 greater kindness, than we bestow on our best 

 horses. The Indian cattle are extremely 

 docile, and quick of perception, pitient and 

 kind ; like the horses, their chief travelling 

 pace is the trot ; and they are reported by 

 those who have ridden them often, to per- 

 form journeys of sixty successive days at 

 the rate of thirty to forty-five miles a day. 



To come back to our own country on this 

 point, it is worthy of being here added that 

 in an address delivered before the Barnwell 

 Agricultural Society of South Carolina in 

 1821, Dr. J. S. Bellinger remarked, that "in 

 the lower districts of our State they appear 

 fully to appreciate the value of their labour 

 in heavy drafts. With those of us who have 

 attempted the useof them, oxen appear fully 

 calculated to answer the many purposes upon 

 our farms to which we almost exclusively 

 apply the more expensive, though nobler 

 animal, the horse." 



Time was when the horse was not consi- 

 dered "the nobler" of the two; else why 

 the many cautions in Scripture in favour and 

 in honour of the ox — thou shalt not muzzle 

 the ox — thy ox shall not labour on the sab- 

 bath-day — thou shalt not covet thy neigh- 

 bour's wife nor his maid — nor his ox! 



The late .lames M. Garnett, of Virginia, 

 honoured be his name by all friends of Ame- 

 rican agriculture, stated in one of his ad- 

 dresses — "A gentleman of my acquaintance 

 had a mixed team of horses, mules and oxen 

 — in each season his horses failed first, the 

 mules next, althoujrh both were fed upon 

 grain and hay; and the oxen, fed exclusively 

 on hay and grass, finished the crop. But to 

 come down to the present time and nearer 

 home, in Maryland, at the hottest season of 

 the year and the most busy one with the 

 planter, the same teams of oxen are worked, 

 durmg the whole day, hauling very heavy 

 loads of green tobacco for weeks together, 

 and do well without any food but the grass 

 of common pasturage on being turned out at 

 night — whereas horses, working steadily in 

 the same way, on the national road in wag 

 ens, consume twenty-five pounds of hay, and 

 grain at the rate of tour bushels of oats per 



day for the five horses, or four-fifths of a 

 bushel for each horse — or, what is considered 

 equivalent, four bushels of corn in the ear — 

 making of oats at the rate of two hundred 

 and thirty-two bushels for each horse for a 

 year! 



As to horse power on the national road, 

 the following is the answer from Major 

 Thruston : 



"Cumberland, Maryland, Nov. 17, 1843: 

 The general result, — for they differ widely 

 in their opinions, — obtained by conversation 

 with the oldest teamsters on the national 

 road, is this — A five-horse team with a load 

 of sixty cvvt. — the average — will make daily, 

 throughout the year, fifteen miles per day; 

 the weight of the empty wagon between one 

 and a half and two tons. At this work 

 horses will not last as long as at farm-work 

 by one-third, certainly. They average one 

 set of shoes monthly, each horse; cost of 

 shoes, one dollar each per month ; feed, four 

 bu.shels of oats per day, or four-fifths of a 

 bushel per day to each horse ; the same of 

 corn in the ear; hay, twenty-five pounds. 

 On this subject they are uniform in their 

 statements. This amount of food is enough, 

 and not more than will be consumed." 



In answer to the argument against oxen 

 now under consideration, and the one which 

 has had most influence in restricting the 

 use of them, we now ofi^er the views urged 

 by the illustrious Madison, whose pen sim- 

 plified and enlightened every subject it 

 touched, as could not but happen with a 

 mind so pure and so bright. 



The objections generally made to the ox 

 are — 1st, that he is less tractable than the 

 horse; 2nd, that he does not bear heat as 

 well ; 3rd, that he does not answer for the 

 single plough used in our corn-fields; 4th, 

 that he is slower in his movements; 5th, 

 that he is less fit for carrying the produce of 

 the farm to market. 



The first objection is certainly founded in 

 mistake. Of the two animals the ox is the 

 most docile. In all countries where the ox 

 is the ordinary draught animal, his docility 

 is proverbial. His intractability, where it 

 exists, has arisen from an occasional use of 

 him only, with long and irregular intervals; 

 during which, the habit of discipline being 

 broken, a new one is to be formpd. 



The second objection has as little founda- 

 tion. The constitution of the ox accommo- 

 dates itself as readily as that of the horse to 

 different climates. Not only in ancient 

 Greece and Italy, but throughout Asia, as 

 presented to us in ancient history, the ox 

 and the plough are associated. At this day, 

 in the warm parts of India and China, the 

 ox, not the horse, is in the draught service. 



